Woman specialising in train thefts nabbed in Kochi

Kochi: A woman, who travels in trains during the night to allegedly commit thefts, finally fell into the police net on Wednesday when cops traced her by tracking the mobile tower location of a stolen ‘Apple’ mobile phone.

38-year-old Sipli Shaji, a native of Parakadavu near Angamaly, was arrested during a probe by the Ernakulam Government Railway Police into a complaint filed by an Ottapalam native, also a woman, that her bag containing 13 sovereigns gold, ‘Apple’, ‘Nokia’ mobile phones and Rs 10, 000 in cash was looted during the night while travelling from Coimbatore to Ernakulam on September 1.

“Her modus operandi is to buy general tickets and then requesting Travelling Ticket Examiners to upgrade the ticket to sleeper or AC classes by paying the difference. The journeys she undertook for the purpose were in the night and the victims were only women. She would get down at stations in the dead of night after committing the thefts,” said a GRP officer.

Initially the cops were groping in the dark but they got a vital lead when the stolen ‘Apple’ mobile was switched on by the accused.

“We located the tower location to Vattaparambu-Parakadavu areas. We then quizzed the autodrivers of Aluva and Angamaly stations whether they had dropped anyone to the said area on the night of September 1. Luckily for us, one of them remembered dropping a woman. Further probe led to her arrest,” the officer said.

Investigations later revealed that she was an accused in several theft cases in Salem, Pothannur, Erode and Coimbatore stations. “We suspect that she has a a role in several train thefts inside the state. The construction of her two-storey building was going on and she failed to show proper sources,” he said.